To stay healthy and competitive, NFL rosters need to continually renew themselves—season after season, and sometimes, week to week. It doesn’t matter if your team invested a first-round pick in a player or signed them to a significant contract just last year, as putting the best talent on the field always has to be priority No. 1 for a contender.
The Carolina Panthers are knocking on that door after winning eight games and a division championship in 2025. Now, they’ll have to prove themselves against one of the league’s toughest schedules in 2026.
That task may call for some big contributions from their rookie class, as it did last year. While first-round selection and offensive tackle Monroe Freeling may or may not crack the starting lineup, the Panthers will definitely need their next two picks (second-round defensive lineman Lee Hunter and third-round wideout Chris Brazzell II) to thrive—which is bad news for a couple of veterans.
According to an analysis by Ben Solak at ESPN, third-year receiver Xavier Legette is on one of the hottest seats in the NFL:
At first it looked like the Panthers’ receivers room would have plenty of space for his development — Legette was the Panthers’ leading target-getter as a rookie. But the emergence of undrafted free agent Jalen Coker and subsequent drafting of 2025 Offensive Rookie of the Year Tetairoa McMillan pushed Legette down to No. 3 on the depth chart … and now Chris Brazzell II has entered the building.
With Brazzell breathing down his neck, Legette needs to show that he can be a net positive for the Panthers’ passing game—or else he will very quickly find himself on the sidelines more often than not. The former 32nd overall pick already experienced a dip in his exposure this past campaign, where his snap count decreased in each of the team’s final four regular-season games.
And Legette isn’t the only Panther who should be sweating his spot. Solak also has defensive tackle Bobby Brown III on his list:
Brown just does not have the range that modern defensive tackles need to create plays. He’s late getting off blocks and struggles mightily when tasked with beating reach blocks laterally. He doesn’t eat up the space a nose tackle needs to occupy to survive.
In the end Brown, earned just a 54.1 overall grade from Pro Football Focus in 2025. That ranked him 80th out of 134 qualifying interior defensive linemen.
The guy that Brown needs to worry about is Hunter, perhaps the most pro-ready prospect of Carolina’s class. He may not be a high-end athlete for his position, but his ability to stuff the run consistently was more than proven during his time at Texas Tech.
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This article originally appeared on Panthers Wire: Panthers’ Xavier Legette, Bobby Brown III on 2 of NFL’s hottest seats